Holding the string - thumb draw
When holding the string in this way, you use just 2 fingers - the thumb and index finger (sometimes middle fingers instead of index). Other fingers are not used, so they can hold arrows or cold wepon for example.Which is a great advantage of this technique. It is used quite comfortably. Some disadvantage is that with most styles of nocking this hold does not come on its own and you have to change the grip first. It does not have to be a big time loss, but some delay it is.
With thumb draw you use the hand from outside. The thumb grabs string just below the arrow and index finger cover it and helps holding. It may look differently (depending on what you lake most), but the point is always in that only the thumb holds the string. Many alternatives of this draw are possible, which you can boldly use it they suits you. Arab archery mentions 6 different variants of hold, but they differ in details and in my oppinion there is no reason to describe them. Let anyone choose his own style.
The side of index finger may (and may not) push the arrow a bit to inside. So if you have an arrow on the outside side of the bow, you press it against the bow. Which quite increases stability and fixes arrow on its place. It is a very useful feature for shooting in motion (running or horseriding).
With thumb draw, the whole power of the bow is held just by thumb. Thanks to this it is easy to release the string clearly and in a good way. The typoe of hold is also very strong, because the thumb is fixed in two points (on one side it is connected to palm, on the other it is locked by index finger). However the power of the bow puts much strain on this just one finger and can easily hurt. In order to compensate this almost every Asian archer used the thumb ring. It is a special type of ring made from wood, metal, bone, horn etc., that looks like a classic ring with like a tonguelet on one side. It is to be worn on the thumb in a way that the tonguelet stays between the string and the thumb itself, and thus protects the thumb. It works very well and really compensates all health consequences. However I don't like it much, because during my (brief) test of the ring It rendered my favourite fast-shooting technique useless. Sure you can learn speed shooting with thumb ring, but I tried it only a fe times and the fell in love with slavic draw, which stopped all my testsw of thumb ring.
Thumb draw was very famous in Asia. Probably it has something to do with recurve bows. Recurve bows are often quite short and the string quite squeezes the fingers of the string hand when full-drawn. If you have just one finger on the string (as with thumb draw), the squeeze dost not make much discomfort.
